Rockets fans won’t be ‘blacked out’ to start playoffs

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The arrival of the NBA Playoffs means that things are about to get a lot tougher for the Rockets and a lot easier for some fans.

The first four games of the Portland-Houston first-round series will air on TNT (Games 1, 2 and 4) or ESPN (Game 3), making them available to hundreds of thousands of local households without access to Comcast SportsNet Houston, the team’s primary regular-season network.

Fan excitement already is building in anticipation of Sunday’s series opener, particularly in the wake of Thursday’s pronouncement by ESPN.

ABC analyst and former Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy that the Rockets are his pick to win the NBA Finals.

“I’m going to pick the Western Conference winner, and I’m going to stick with Houston,” Van Gundy said. “If they get past Portland they will have to win three (series) on the road without home-court advantage, which seems really difficult, but I have liked their team from the start.”

Van Gundy said the Rockets “play fast, they score easily and they have a talent in James Harden who is as hard to guard as anybody who is not named Kevin Durant or LeBron James. They have a center (Dwight Howard) who gives them a force in the paint to protect the rim, to rebound and score, and they have a unique competitor in (guard) Patrick Beverly.”

Harden, Howard and Beverly are three of the hottest names in the NBA, but they may be relative strangers to fans who haven’t had a chance to watch them on CSN Houston. The network is available in fewer than 40 percent of the area’s 2.2 million TV homes and has been mired in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since last September.

With CSN Houston unavailable on DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-verse and Suddenlink cable, Rockets game broadcasts this season drew an average audience of just 27,000 households.

Those numbers, however, are certain to improve during the playoffs. A Rockets-Heat game earlier this year on KTRK (Channel 13) drew just under 150,000 households. Nine games on ESPN drew about 57,000 households per game, doubling the CSN Houston audience.

First-round games will still air on CSN Houston, but each game also will air on TNT, ESPN, ABC or NBA TV. (Network assignments have not been made beyond Game 4). TNT and ESPN games will air in Houston on those networks; Rockets-Blazers games on NBA TV will be blacked out on that channel in Houston.

That’s good news for fans, some of whom have had to make financial sacrifices to keep track of the team. Luis Carnero of Houston said he and his wife, Andrea, kept their DirecTV subscription but wired one room for Comcast cable to get CSN Houston.

“I don’t like paying the extra money, but what can I do? I want to watch the Rockets,” Carnero said. “They’ve got me hooked.”

Rockets CEO Tad Brown said he and team owner Leslie Alexander understand fans’ frustration as the network limped through its first season without Rockets games and then was plunged into bankruptcy before the 2013-14 season.

“Our fans just want to see the games and don’t care about the rest of the mess, nor should they,” Brown said in an email. “And it’s been very difficult for our organization – Mr. Alexander, our players, basketball staff, employees, everyone involved.

“It’s incomprehensible to me we remain in this situation. Ultimately I’m accountable and I’m truly sorry for where we are. It sickens me that fans have not been able to see this team grow. All we can do at this point is continue to work with the court for a resolution as quickly as the process will allow.”

Van Gundy, who lives in Houston, said the CSN Houston carriage situation “has to impact everything about the Rockets negatively. Fans haven’t gotten to see a team that has been put together the right way. … They’re missing a great show.”

Brown, however, said the team’s business metrics and research sources indicate enthusiasm is on an upswing. And while the team has suffered a severe hit to the bottom line by CSN Houston’s inability to pay the Rockets more than $36 million in rights fees so far this year, Brown said Alexander isn’t skimping on the Rockets.

“Leslie has never and will never operate that way,” Brown said, citing an estimated $220 million in payroll commitments, $26 million in improvements to Toyota Center and expanded staff to deal with customer service issues.

“Leslie has always believed that if you build a winner by investing in the right areas everything will take care of itself,” Brown said. “I can’t speak to philosophies of other owners around the league or in other sports.”

Some fans, though, still have hurt feelings about the inability to see games on CSN Houston, which is owned by the Rockets, Astros and Comcast. Ezekiel Ortuno of Houston said he subscribed to Comcast to watch the network but dropped it because of pricing and customer service complaints.

“My wife is happy because I spend more time with her, but my pocket isn’t happy because we spend more time coming to games,” said Ortono, who said he has attended 10 games at Toyota Center this season. “People are losing interest because they can’t see the team. You don’t know the players.”

With playoff time, though, comes an opportunity for fans to get re-acquainted with the Rockets and, perhaps, enjoy the same sort of championship ride many of them remember from 20 years ago.

“Remember how the city was hopping when we won (in 1993-94 and 1994-95)?” said fan Charles Smith of Sugar Land. “I remember it. This team may not win it, but we’ll make some noise.”